Here is another factoid to think about in reflecting on the election. In 1944 when FDR was running for his fourth term, he was nationally known as the "Friend of the Negro". The night before that election, in a nationally broadcast radio address, FDR implored the nation with the following prayer:
"Enable us to grant the least among us the freedom we covet for ourselves; make us ill-content with the inequalities of opportunity which still prevail among us. Preserve our union against all the divisions of race and class which threaten it."
That Democrats nationally stood for making progress toward racial equality could not be clearer. And yet, the next day, the virtually all-white electorate in the state of Mississippi gave Roosevelt 93.6% of its votes!
I can think of at least three explanations for this: Leader during a war with national unity and a century of Democratic domination of the South. But here is the one that seems most interesting in light of the election of Trump. 1944 was a time when southern whites were in the ascendancy, in almost all aspects of civic life. Since then, the power over others has been lost and many white voters are now substantially driven by resentment at their loss of that power over others. This is not to diminish the power of economic populism, but in an economy that has been growing steadily for eight years, the role of that economic explanation for voting patterns, it seems to me, should be seen in the shadow of white resentment.